Karl's wings tore the air apart as he closed the distance, a molten blur of muscle, scale, and heat.
The ground shook under each stride, talons carving into stone like it was wet clay. His roar was a rolling quake, a sound that made even the shattered walls tremble.
Lucian didn't flinch. His eyes tracked the dragon's every move, the edges of his vision already warping.
Karl's claw came first—a sweeping hook that would have ripped a lesser man in half. Lucian's outline flickered, and the strike passed through the afterimage he left behind. But he wasn't simply moving fast. Space between them folded in on itself, bending his path so that Karl's strike couldn't even land in the right universe.
Karl spun with the miss, tail whipping toward Lucian with enough force to shatter a fortress wall. Lucian's hand snapped up, two fingers extended, and the space around the tail collapsed into a thin, impossible line. The tail passed through it—emerging meters away, cutting into empty air.
